We all have key events that happen throughout our lifetime that change our direction & open our eyes beyond our current reality. It is interesting to me how we have so many of these life changing moments, but at the time, we have no idea what kind of magic they possess & how they can change our lives & guide us to finding our passions & ultimately our life calling.

It was just three miles away from my grandpa’s house in suburban Noida near Delhi, India. But it seemed to be a different world.

I was wading through the narrow and crowded alleys of the slum adjacent to the biggest market of the city. A young woman, who earns her living by ironing clothes under a roadside tent, guided me through the maze of small houses and shacks to the local school for underprivileged kids.

In regard to health education, much of the information came from some brochures. I can recall reading some materials that came with the textbooks each semester in primary school. These materials talk about how our body grows, how we change from little kids to teenagers, and talked about girls’ period and such. And they also tell us about the damage of drugs. So that’s pretty much the first health education of mine. Schools were reluctant and by-the-book.

If you asked me to name the first things that come to mind when describing my childhood, I would tell you that they are the same things that I preoccupy myself with now: TV and Sports. The TV part is pretty straightforward. Watching my favorite shows used to be so automatic, I knew entire episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and SpongebobSquarepants by heart. The sports part is a little less conventional. A highlight reel of my short-lived middle school football career would feature clips of my 7th grade self being annihilated by bigger kids in practice, warming the bench for most of the games, and ultimately quitting a little more than halfway through the season.